PTSD – The Writer’s Friend

I’m crap at parties. It’s not that I don’t like people. Most of them are quite nice. Some of them are downright lovely. There are a few who… well, this isn’t a rant, so let’s just ignore those guys.

The party problem lies - as all my problems do - in me. I don’t make a good first impression. No matter how hard I try to retain names, they evaporate from memory as soon as I hear them. My small talk is nonexistent and my large talk tends to be embarrassingly unedited. I have a loud, raucous laugh – my American co-workers used to call me the Canada goose – and a distressing habit of gesturing expansively when I talk, sloshing anyone brave enough to engage me in conversation with red wine, since Merlot is my grape of choice. As a result, I prefer to hug the wall in a large group of people and deflect attention by studying the books on my host’s shelves.

Given these social deficits, holding a launch party for SISTERS OF THE SARI seemed like a really bad idea, especially since such gatherings are usually held in bookshops, giving me plenty of attention deflecting material to work with. But I reckoned without Velma, who rings the little dingers at the high end of the table in my hand bell group.

Velma is one of those people who thrives at parties. She has a great sense of humor, always says the right thing in the right way and is admirably tidy when it comes to holding her liquor, at least in the literal sense. Due to her enviable social talents, Velma knows just about everyone in town, including Anne and Dave who run TITLES, our local independent bookstore.

A while ago I got an email from Anne, saying Velma had dropped by TITLES and they would be delighted to host my book launch. It would have been churlish of me to refuse their hospitality.  (Churlish is a wonderful word, isn’t it? It’s from the Old English ceorl which meant free man.  Presumably, back then, free men were quite rude.) Accepting the inevitable, I cruised the internet for book launching advice and was happy to learn that unless the event is for a mega author like J.K. Rowling, most book launches are attended by family and friends at best. I don’t know many people here in town and those I do know had already read the book. Figuring I could handle the two or three people who showed up, I donned my spiffy new, and empoweringly purple, author’s outfit and headed out to the bookstore last Wednesday evening, heartened by the heat and humidity, which did terrible things to my hair but was likely to discourage increased attendance.

The first person to arrive was a man I didn’t know. Fortunately his name was Adam, easy to remember because he was the first man. We chatted, while I defaced the title page of his book with my signature. When Adam moved on, I found myself facing two more people I’d never seen before. So much for internet wisdom. I managed to remember their names long enough to deface their books as well.

The store filled rapidly. The cash register chinged constantly as Dave and Anne rang up sales. Joe, their assistant, scurried to set out more chairs for the reading.  Anne’s sister Lynne manned the drinks table, lubricating the noise level in the room with wine until the walls seemed to vibrate around me. I signed books until my hand muscles, sadly out of shape since the invention of the keyboard, began to cramp and the letters of my name blurred into illegible nonsense.

While resting my hand, I looked around the room and realized I’d seriously underestimated the number of people I know in this town. Yes, there were a handful of strangers like Adam, who had bought the book a few days before and enjoyed it enough to want it autographed, but for the most part, the room was filled with faces I could already assign names to. The biggest contingent of familiar faces came from the library where I volunteer. The librarians were out in force, as were some of my regular interneters. The local writers’ group was well represented, and a few of my fellow hand bell ringers dotted the room. This did not bode well for the reading portion of the evening’s entertainment. It’s one thing to embarrass yourself in front of people you’ll never see again, totally another to tank in the presence of those who will have to spend the next several weeks avoiding the topic of your most embarrassing moment.

When I ran out of books to deface, I looked around the room again and noted it was almost empty. Great!  Everyone was leaving and I wouldn’t have to do a reading after all. If there’s one thing I dread more than parties, it’s public speaking. I’m not alone in this. Apparently, public speaking tops death on the list of things people fear. I headed over to the drinks table, intent on finishing whatever still remained in the wine bottles before the last stragglers drained them completely. 

But no one had actually left. They’d just moved to the back of the room to claim their seats for the reading. I began having vivid, PTSD style flashbacks of my one public speaking fiasco from high school. Putting down the Beaujolais bottle, I trudged to the back of the room and certain doom.

Anne coerced Velma into introducing me, which pleased me in a serves-her-right kind of way. This whole thing was Velma’s fault and I liked the idea of her having a share in the suffering. Unfortunately, it turned out that among her many social accomplishments, Velma has a natural talent for extemporaneous public speaking, making her a tough act to follow.

For all the bad press PTSD gets these days, it has one redeeming quality: memory suppression. I remember walking toward the lectern. Then there’s a static-y period where it felt as though centipedes were holding a convention in my stomach. The next thing I remember clearly is reclaiming my abandoned bottle of Beaujolais and slugging back two quick ones to kill the last of the centipedes.   

As people were leaving, they told me they enjoyed the reading. Now, as I said before, most people are quite nice, so it’s possible they were just being polite. But since I had no coherent memory of the event myself, I chose to believe them and went home happy in the knowledge I won’t be avoiding my friends for the next few weeks.